NFL power rankings: Bucs destined for the dumpster?

NFL power rankings: Bucs destined for the dumpster?

Week 1 of the NFL season is upon us, and it’s time for everyone to start throwing out their power rankings for the league’s 32 teams.

The latest list comes from Bleacher Report, and it’s safe to say they’re not expecting anything good from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

B/R’s power rankings have the Bucs listed at No. 31, with the Miami Dolphins as the only thing keeping them from being dead-last. Their analysis highlights Jameis Winston’s suspension, along with an extremely difficult start to their schedule, as primary reasons for Tampa Bay being in the league’s basement to start the season:

The good news for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is that quarterback Jameis Winston looked razor-sharp in the preseason.

The bad news is that Winston’s three-game suspension means he won’t see the field again until Week 4—and by then, the Buccaneers may well already be in a hole.

Tampa appears to have angered the scheduling gods, because the stretch of games the team will play without Winston is brutal. The Buccaneers open the season with three straight games against division winners from last year: at New Orleans and then home against the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers.

It’s understandable to not expect much from the Bucs over those first three weeks, but stranger things have happened in a league that experiences a ridiculous amount of turnover on an annual basis. Seeing teams like the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and Cleveland Browns ranked ahead of the Bucs makes little sense.

Even if the Bucs start the 2018 season 0-3, as B/R predicts here, they’re far from the second-worst team in the NFL.